


metamorphosis

by starfaes



Series: ow character study [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Widowmaker-centric, also warning for a little bit of body horror, inspired by her odette and odile skins, no pairings in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 02:56:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7873492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfaes/pseuds/starfaes





	metamorphosis

Amélie waits in the darkness for her cue.

Her heart beat thrums wildly; she is nervous, but she is also excited to show the audience what she had been working on in months. She had practiced day after day in the studio, repeating each step over and over until she had achieved near perfection, and finally, she is about to be able to perform her most ambitious piece in her entire career.

Tchaikovsky's _Swan Lake_ is a classic, beloved by many, performed by many talented and well known ballerinas over centuries, and known as one of the most famous ballets in the world today. It has to be perfect.

_Gérard_ is here, and she wants to do her absolute best for him.

The curtains open, and she is immediately greeted by the brightness of the spotlight shining on her, and the waiting faces of hundreds of people. It still amazes her how they all have come to see her perform, and Amélie is elated when she sees that her own excitement is reflected in their wide smiles.

She glances at him, at where he is sitting at the very front, and he gives her a wide grin, making her heart flutter and spirits soar higher in a way that only he could.

She takes her starting position in the center of the stage, feeling the feathers of the large swan headpiece and stray strands of her dark hair caress her temples. when the music begins, she looks up, and begins to dance.

_En pointe._  
  
Taking graceful, dainty steps around the stage, Amélie calmly goes over each step in her head and tries to calm her nerves by taking even breaths.

_Chaînés, chaînés, pirouette, plié, brisé, arabesque, chaînés, chaînés..._

In this part of the performance, Odette is mortally wounded by Von Rothbart, the evil sorcerer who had cursed her, and she slowly dies by the edge of the lake, alone. Prince Siegfried never realizes that his wife, Odile, is not the woman he had fallen in love with, and this leads to his demise at her hands. _A darker twist on the traditional tale, but an interesting one_ , she thinks.

As she dances, she senses the audience's steady gaze on her, and it is silent except for the gentle, yet sorrowful orchestral music. With every step, and every turn, adrenaline courses through her body and she feels as if she is gliding across the stage.

_Trente-deux fouettes..._

Her tutu, a beautiful thing adorned with a myriad of jewels, ruffles and white feathers, fans around her waist and becomes a glittering blur of ivory as she spins around.

_Trois, deux, une..._

She twirls one last time, and finishes just as she began, _en pointe_. With that, her performance has come to an end. She lifts her hands up and looks over at the crowd with a smile, trying to calm her pounding heart with steady breaths. With a roar of applause, loud cheering and white roses being thrown onto the stage, the soreness of her legs and arms is soon forgotten.

_...Odette will become Odile._

"Amélie...!"

His voice.

She looks out at the audience, and looks for him. For Gérard.

Only to see a man clutching at a knife in his chest, his white shirt starting to stain from the blood pouring out of the wound. His face is deathly pale, and his eyes are wide.

"Amélie…!"

She screams, and falters, stumbling onto the stage. The audience has stopped cheering and clapping, and there is no sound except for her panicked shrieking.

_Odette will become Odile._

She looks down at her tutu and sees the white feathers falling off, plumage as dark as night growing in their place, and her white satin gloves are gone. Blood is the only thing that covers her hands now, and she looks down at them in horror and back up at Gérard; the look of _betrayal_ in his eyes is haunting.

She is lifted from the stage by her arms and legs and sees that there are strings attached to her limbs. Instead of an audience, there are now dark, ominous figures, whispering and murmuring and chuckling as she is harshly jerked about the stage by the strings. Her arms and legs burn as they pull at her skin, and she cries out as blood begins to seep from where they are attached.

She lifts her head towards him in the crowd, and Gérard is looking at her with the same anguished look in his eyes, his hands still gripping the weapon lodged in his chest tightly, and his lips are open as he repeatedly screams her name.

Everything hurts and she hears voices in her head. telling her to _forget forget forget_. She fights and tries to escape, but it only ends up causing her more pain and she stops, realizing that it is all in vain. _Forget forget forget. S_ he feels cold.

"Amélie!" his voice echoes in her mind, and she wants to close her eyes and cover her ears and _get away_ but she cannot. " _Am_ _é_ _lie!_ " The strings pull at her arms and legs and she is surprised when she realizes she feels nothing. As she looks back up at Gérard again, she expects to feel the same dread and grief she had felt before, but she feels _nothing_.

_Odette will become Odile._

There is more blood on her hands now, and instead of the dread she had felt before, she feels exhilaration. She ignores Gérard calling her name and doesn't even notice when he finally slumps over, dead. As if a switch was flipped, she walks to the center of the stage, strings still attached but no longer pulling her along, and begins to dance.

She takes note of the roses that had been thrown onto the stage earlier; the petals have dried and have turned a dark shade of red, almost black. Amélie also takes note the numbness she begins feels below her knees, but keeps dancing as if she is being driven by an unknown force.

The dark figures murmur and whisper for her to continue, and she feels pride in knowing that she is satisfying them. Amélie realizes, that unlike the audience's cheering and clapping from before, their praise makes _Widowmaker feel alive._

_Odette will become Odile._

Widowmaker's eyes open, and she realizes that she had fallen asleep on the vanity. She sits up, looking into the mirror, into her own amber eyes, and swears she sees a reflection of someone familiar in them; a young smiling woman. A woman who was once kind, caring and beautiful, who had loved and had been loved long ago. She blinks once, and the woman is gone, a corpse being the only thing staring back at her in the mirror now.

She slowly moves her gaze down to the stumps where her legs used to be, and reaches for her prostheses. She doesn't react as the joints of the artificial legs viciously clamp down on her skin, securing themselves tightly. Her movements are not as fluid and graceful as they once were, but Talon has given her the strength she needs to complete her missions without fail. _It is an improvement,_ she tells herself, moving one of _Talon's_ legs, and noticing how stiff and awkward it looks. ... _an improvement._

Opening one of the drawers of the vanity and taking out a needle filled with a dark liquid, she promptly injects herself with it. Widowmaker doesn't blink or flinch as the needle pierces her skin, merely watches the substance empty out from the syringe and into her bloodstream through her reflection in the mirror. As she feels the usual cool rush throughout her body, she looks back up at her eyes and tries to see what she had before, but sees nothing. _As it should be_ , Widowmaker thinks, as she stands up and leaves the room for another round of conditioning.

_Odette has become Odile._


End file.
